Bark at strangers

Does your dog bark at strangers? When I take our Shih Tzu outside and someone walks or rides their bike past our house, she goes nuts. She actually thinks she can be an attack dog sometimes. I simply say stop and go shh and she quits.

 

Mishka barks at strangers and loves unfortunately snapping at bicycle tyres which is a problem.She only does it when we are at home or with her. When we're not around we are pretty sure she hides under our house.

 

Oh absolutely. You're lucky that a "shhh" is enough. It's definitely not for mine. He will continue to go nuts for quite a while.

 

My Homer barks at strangers all the time. He especially likes to bark at homeless people, old people with sticks, the mailman, and little kids. He never barks at men with glasses though. It's probably because my father wears glasses and Homer loves him .

 

I think Buddy barks at his own shadow. Seriously this dog is like the dog who barked wolf, he will bark at anything. This isn't a good thing because one time he and Oso actually had reason for their barking, there was a fire in lot near our home. We ignored them, and had a firefighter at our door telling us we needed to evacuate our home because of the fire. Fortunately there was no damage to our home and the fire was contained. Now we listen when our dogs bark but once again there is Buddy barking at everything in sight.

 

That's interesting that Buddy barks at his own shadow. Our Shih Tzu doesn't do that, and shes rather quiet. The only times she barks is if strangers walk or ride by our house on a bike when shes outside doing her business. Every now and then she lets out the occasional weird bark when she's just laying there.

 

I used to have this problem with Misha. When I moved after my Dad died, it was part of her nervous problems. It wasn't aggression, it was fear.

Every time I took her for a walk she would bark and lunge at people on our side of the street. She'd bark at people on the other side of the street. She'd bark at people getting out of their cars and people on bicycles, too.

She doesn't do it any more. I got her out of it by continuing to walk her and correct her when she does it. Eventually, she got over it. I'm glad because it was such a nuisance! Now we can walk down the street without a problem unless the person has a dog. Otherwise, she is quiet. In fact, today I stopped to talk to a neighbor who was in a wheelchair (he fell and broke his leg in 22 places). Misha stood at my side the whole time and didn't say a word even though she doesn't know this man. We're making progress!

 

Our coonhound would when someone rang the door bell, but she would hide behind the door and bar. It was kind of funny, because she would let out an extra deep bark like she was trying to sound all badass or something, when really she was a scardy cat.

 

My little dog does the same thing. She barks like mad at anyone passing by, even if they're on the opposite side of the street during a walk, pulling towards them. I usually respond with "You're like two inches tall. You're not scaring anyone. Everyone just thinks you're cute. Shut up." As I laugh, and the person passing by tends to laugh as well, because she really isn't intimidating at all at her size.